Idaho Couple Order to Pay $115,000 for Illegally Guiding Mountain Lion Hunts 💵

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

A “CAMOUFLAGE COLLAR CRIME”
IDAHO COUPLE ORDERED TO PAY $115,000 FOR ILLEGALLY GUIDING MOUNTAIN LION HUNTS

Chad Kulow and Andrea Major, an engaged couple from Kuna, walked out of federal court last week with a whole lot more than they went in with.

The sentencing is the result of an investigation that has been in the works since late 2021. It was then that Kulow, Major and a friend were all licensed guides working under a legitimate outfitter who had the proper state licensing and U.S. Forest Service permitting.

While on the surface, it looked as though everything was buttoned up nicely for the couple and their sidekick, as under Idaho law, guides must operate beneath a licensed outfitter. The only caveat, of course, is that they are not able to book their own clients, take payments or run hunts independently.

And that is where our trio ran astray…

🦭 Teen Pleads Guilty to Kicking Sea Lion in Viral Video, Faces Up to a Year in Prison. A San Diego teen who decided to square up to a sea lion as if he was walking into the Octagon, is now staring down a possible six-figure fine and jail time. In viral video footage, 18-year-old Tyler Muehl is seen approaching the animal with his hands up, announcing himself to the crowd (and unwilling participant) as UFC fighter Max Holloway.

During the dramatized fight, Muehl managed to land a few kicks on his defenseless opponent and continued to chase it down the seawall as it attempted to escape. Thankfully Muehl and his buddies have about as many brain cells as a sea lion has middle fingers, and they posted it up for the whole world to see.

He was in court last Thursday where he entered a guilty plea for harassing a protected marine mammal under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which could carry up to a year’s worth of federal prison time and a $100,000 fine. The U.S. Attorney’s office kept it short and sweet, reminding knuckleheads everywhere that federal crimes come with federal consequences.

🎣 Minnesota to Hunters: Don’t Shoot the Bears With the Colorful Ear Tags, K? Minnesota’s black bear season is just around the corner and the DNR is putting out their annual reminder, begging hunters not to shoot the bruins that are colorfully marked for research.

Across the state, biologists are tracking about 50 bears that are sporting radio collars and large, bright colored ear tags that are apparently tough to miss, although they do recognize that mistakes happen. The majority of the tagged bears are females, most of which are situated around the Chippewa National Forest, Camp Ripley, Brainerd and Duluth.

The name of the game here is stacking data on food supply, habitat use, reproduction, and how bears interact with people—information state officials use to help shape seasons. Naturally, if one hits the dirt, that resets the clock and leaves a hole in their data.

It remains perfectly legal to shoot one that is sporting a colored marker, so long as the hunter pinky promises that he or she genuinely did not see the tags. As such, the agency is, once again, asking hunters to take an extra pause to confirm before letting one fly this fall.

🌳 Trump Admin Moves to Rescind 25-Year Roadless Rule Protecting Tens of Millions of National Forest Acres. Continuing to make moves, the Trump admin announced plans earlier this week that they were eyeing the idea of fully rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The rule, which was set in place by the Clinton Administration back in 2001, protects between 49 and 59 million acres (or about 30% of U.S. national forest lands) from road building, logging and other development.

Making the controversial announcement on Tuesday, Ag. Secretary Brooke Rollins and the USFS argued that the current “one-size-fits-all” approach has hindered local managers from reducing wildfire risk, addressing overgrowth, insect outbreaks, and disease. The agency is convinced that the change will restore decision making to local forest supervisors without the requirement of new roads or timber harvests, although they would have the option, if necessary.

As of right now, it’s pretty contentious out there and if you’ve got anything to say about it, public comments are open until September 21st.

🚣 Don’t you just hate it when the other guy beats you to the fish? Watch this awesome encounter as a brown bear charges into the river to snag a fish just as this guide is paddling by.

Thank God he was only after the fish…

💨 Sixty Goes Fast : I am a Mississippi Flyway waterfowler, and our seasons are confined to a sixty-day season right in line with the Atlantic Flyway. The Central Flyway chases them for 74 days, while the Pacific Flyway has the longest stretch at 107. The different lengths are based on different numbers of hunters, mallard populations and a few other factors. 

When you look at the actual number, all of those seem like such a long time, so much opportunity with plenty of days to hunt. 

Then, in a blink of an eye, duck season comes and goes in a flash. Read the full story.

🏔️ Decade:  It had been 10 long years since the brothers and I hunted elk together in the Wyoming high country. Years that had taken me north to Montana, where I hunted with various partners, tried different mountain ranges, scouted new basins. A few elk were taken, but it just did not seem the same, did not feel like the team I was once a part of for many long years. Nothing clicked. The brothers, too, had gone in different career directions, Dave helping run the state’s park system, Al out in Boise fighting fires. They kept hunting together, though, while I stubbornly tried to make Montana hunt like Wyoming, tried to find old friends Dave or Al in new friends like Ty and Corey.

But on this September morning, a morning that feels more like November, the very worst of it, we are together once again. In a blizzard, a full-on, nonstop blizzard that has been on us for most of the week. Opening morning, late in a month that usually is sunshine and short sleeves, and the snow is shin-deep, with more in the air, and the elk herd out in front of us.  Read the full story.

🐻 The Kodiak Plan : Here is my situation: tomorrow, gravel strip to Larsen Bay, then boat, then foot, into a tent, and at the end of it, assuming Dutch isn’t exaggerating, there will be a bear the size of a good Buick, and I will shoot it, cleanly, because that’s the thing I’m really good at, honed on four continents: the Selous, the Zambezi delta, a ridge above a Kyrgyz valley so remote I could hear my own pulse between shots. I want to be clear, mostly to myself: I do not need this bear to prove anything. That phase, shooting animals as a memo to a father who received approximately zero of them, is closed. I am simply a man who wants a bear. Clean, uncomplicated: bear, then whiskey, then home.

Tonight, however, I am in the hotel bar in Kodiak, not fancy but trying so hard to be fancy, antlers over the mirror, a laminated sign about muddy boots, that I find myself rooting for it, working through a pour of 19-year Pappy I talked the bartender into unlocking. Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…